The Writings of Eloise Butler

Lily Declared Crowning Wild Flower near Minneapolis in July; Miss Butler Describes, Also, the Blossoms That Kept it Company.

Doubtless Everyone Would select as the crowning wild flower for the calendar months of the growing season in Minneapolis the pasque flower for April, violets for May, roses for June and lilies for July.

Of our three native lilies the Turk’s-cap (Lilium michiganense L.- photo above), although not the lily of Palestine, may be said to surpass the glory of Solomon, as it is arrayed in recurved orange-red petals flecked with spots of purple. Sometimes as many as forty blossoms are borne on a single plant.

Beautiful, also, is the yellow swamp lily, (Ref. 1) with floral leaves spotted with brown and less recurved than those of the Turk’s-cap, and the Wood Lily, Lilium philadelphicum, with an erect, cup-like flower of deep, glowing red. The vivid colors of all these lilies were developed in crucibles fired by summer’s fiercest noon-tide heat.

Troops of Black-eyed Susans boldly stare at roamers over the hillsides. As we return Susan’s unblinking gaze we see that her eyes are a velvety, purplish brown instead of black. This coneflower, Rudbeckia hirta, is a composite. The “eye” is made up of many small, tubular flowers, and each yellow eyelash is also a flower.

Since that time “polarity” has been observed in the leaves of many other plants growing in drought regions or in exposed situations, as the eucalyptus trees of Australia. Such trees, of course, afford no shade. The habit may be noted in the roadside weed prickly lettuce, and in some degree even in the garden lettuce.

To subdue the brilliant orange and reds of the lilies and composites, Mother Nature has planted among them with judicious and generous hand various white flowers, as Veronica virginica, (Ref. 2) with feathery spires of bloom, some branched like candelabras, topping slender stems, clothed at intervals with whorls of narrow, pointed leaves. It is popularly called Culver’s Root, or Culver’s Physic, because one of that name extracted a specific from the root.

The shrub-like Ceanothus (Ceanothus americanus) or New Jersey Tea, seemingly covered with sea foam and mist, has drifted from the Atlantic to the valley of the Mississippi. This plant has historic interest as well as refined beauty. It is well that it grows in prodigal masses in wide distribution. For, after the Boston Tea Party, a brew of the leaves of the Ceanothus plenished the teapots of our revolutionary forebears.

Why, for instance, because a neighbor has a beautiful plant on his premises should every one in the vicinity straightway fill his grounds with the same in monotonous reiteration? Among the hosts of ornamental plants may not something else be selected besides hydrangea, scarlet rambler, canna and golden glow to prevent satiety? If a plant is “all the rage.” it is the very best reason why one should fall out of line and imitate nature in her endless variety.

The flower cluster of the cattail (Ref. 3) is made up of innumerable blossoms of two sorts, without nectar, fragrance or bright color, because they are pollinated by the wind. The slender spike at the top bears the pollen-producing flowers. These after doing their work wither sway and disappear, while the flowers of the stouter body below ripen into tiny, seed-like fruits that are converted by tufts of fine hairs into aeroplanes that will take a long flight through the air before they settle down to propagate new plants.

Cattails are still in fashion with children, who carefully store them for a gala time, when they are dipped in kerosene to use for torches in Halloween processions.